Current theories of immunology suggest that, in order to provide a potent antibody response, an antigen must be seen by both B cells, which subsequently develop into the antibody producing cells, and also by helper T-cells, which provide growth and differentiation signals to the antigen specific B-cells. Helper T-cells recognize the antigen on the surface of antigen-presenting cells (APC) in association with Class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene products.
There are significant advantages in using proteins and peptides derived from proteins of infectious organisms as part of subunit vaccines. The search for such suitable subunits constitutes a very active area of both present and past research. Advances in techniques of recombinant DNA manipulations, protein purification, peptide synthesis and cellular immunology have greatly assisted in this endeavour. However, a major stumbling block to the use of such materials as vaccines has been the relatively poor in-vivo immunogenicity of most protein subunits and peptides. Generally, the immune response to vaccine preparations is enhanced by the use of adjuvants. However, the only currently licensed adjuvants for use in humans are aluminum hydroxide and aluminum phosphate, collectively termed alum, which is limited in its effectiveness as a potent adjuvant. There is thus a need for new adjuvants with the desired efficacy and safety profiles.
Several adjuvants, such as Freund's Complete Adjuvant (FCA), syntex and QS21, have been used widely in animals (ref 1--Throughout this application, various references are referred to in parenthesis to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains. Full bibliographic information for each citation is found at the end of the specification, immediately preceding the claims. The disclosures of these references are hereby incorporated by reference into the present disclosure). In animals, administration of peptides and protein antigens with these adjuvants, has been shown to result in neutralizing antibodies against a variety of infectious organisms (refs. 3 to 8). A novel way of engaging both the B and T cell components of an immune response has been described, which uses anti-class II monoclonal antibodies (mabs) coupled to antigens to target class II bearing antigen presenting cells (APC's) (refs 9 to 11, also U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,194,254 and 4,950,480, assigned to the assignee hereof). Experiments carried out in-vivo in rodents and rabbits using this technology, (refs. 9 to 12), have demonstrated convincing proof of enhancement in immunogenicity of antigens, in the absence of conventional adjuvants. Several research groups have used other cell surface markers such as Surface Immunoglobulin (sIg) (ref. 13), Fc .gamma. receptors, CD45 and MHC class I (refs. 14 to 17), to achieve targeting to APC's; however, most of these latter studies involve in-vitro experiments and lack animal data. Another group of studies reports the use of antibodies of irrelevant specificity to carry antigen epitopes (refs. 18 to 24). The in-vivo studies utilizing such "antigenized antibodies", however, involves the use of conventional adjuvants and some of them require multiple injections for the desired effect (ref. 24).
In previous studies using anti-class II mab as a targeting molecule (refs. 9 to 11), biotin-streptavidin based interaction was used to link the antibody and antigen. There are some inherent disadvantages with such chemical coupling techniques, such as yields (about 20%) and also the variability factor between different preparations. There is also no adequate control on the amounts of coupled peptide as well as the exact location of the reaction. Additionally, further purification is usually required and, therefore, losses in material can be significant.
Recently a study reporting in-vitro data using antihuman class II Fab-peptide fusions generated by recombinant DNA methodology, has been published (ref. 27). There are several differences between these fusions and the present invention in that the former is an E. coli expressed monovalent protein fragment of a divalent whole immunoglobulin molecule and also is an in-vitro study. The common problems encountered in bacterial expression systems include expression as inclusion bodies which require solubilization and refolding with extensive product losses. The expression of whole antibody is presently not possible in E. coli and, therefore, the monovalent Fab may not have the requisite affinity for in-vivo targeting. There are, thus, several advantages in using a whole IgG recombinant system as described herein.
There remains a need, therefore, to produce conjugates of targeting antibodies and antigens of specific reproducible structure in high yields. Such conjugate antibody molecules and nucleic acid molecules encoding the same are useful in immunogenic preparations including vaccines, for protection against disease caused by a selected pathogen and for use as and for the generation of diagnostic reagents and kits.